Feeding a revolution — Formerly "farmers Market Vegan"

Vegan Chews & Progressive News {7-31-15}

Chickpeas & Changes’s “Vegan Chews & Progressive News” series strives to promote vegan food (an outgrowth of anti-speciesism) and progressive discussion of social issues—both of which I view as important in fostering a society that prioritizes the well-being of all creatures (not just the rich, white, or human)over the continuous striving for profit/resource accumulation.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to yet another installment of Vegan Chews & Progressive News (# NewsandChews)! This edition covers all of your summer eating bases: BBQ, burgers, and ice cream. And, while you’re sated from your warm-weather foods, I’d highly recommend that you read & watch the stuff below for info on such important topics as racial justice, body image, and how the US’ slavery-based history pervades our country’s notions of race today. Let’s get to it!

Favorite Newly Published Recipe

Even though the last time I tried to prepare jackfruit I ended up in the emergency room with a bloody ring finger (not from the jackfruit…from that damn veggie-shredding mandoline…), I have not yet been dissuaded from the satisfying texture and flavor-absorbing skills of the giant Southeast Asian fruit. And when that skillful fruit absorbs the tangy, sweet-spicy flavor of homemade BBQ sauce? Count me very much in.

I’ve been on a continuous quest for the ideal, sufficiently thick vegan milkshake for at least two years now, and have high hopes for this innovative recipe. Innovative, you ask? Well, when was the last time you included a frozen sweet potato in your milkshake? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Best Recipe I Made This Week

These chewy, hearty, oh-so umami veggie patties graced the table of the most recent co-op dinner I prepared, alongside the pretzel buns that I featured on last week’s # NewsandChews. A huge hit! I mean, you can’t really go wrong with oats, walnuts, and loads of caramelized veggies, amirite?

Must-Read Article(s)

Perhaps not the most surprising news given the FBI’s history of monitoring Black activists in the 1960s with COINTELPRO, but still supremely important given the fact that the Department of Homeland Security’s stated aim is to combat terrorism. So…Black Lives Matter activists=terrorists. Right.

Okay, so yeah, I get everyone’s outrage around the murder of Cecil the Lion. I’m outraged, too. But I’m also outraged about the billions of animals killed without question every day for food, scientific research, entertainment and the like. AND I’m also also outraged about the history of white supremacy and imperialism that allows us to much more swiftly react with outrage about the murder of this lion than to those aforementioned billions of animals. So please read this.

Favorite Podcast Episode or Video

A powerful affirmation for anyone who has ever internalized media images of bodies, struggled to force their body to conform to an arbitrary standard, and/or thought that their self-worth varied in direct proportion with how small their body was. #Mywholelife. It’s taken a LOT of healing work to climb out of the depths of that obsessive, destructive way of thinking, and it’s validations like this videos that have certainly helped me along the way.

Book Recommendation Awesome Projects You Should Totally Check Out

I may be a bit late to the game on this one, but that doesn’t make it any less important. In the wake of the Charleston Massacre, a group of Black intellectuals and activists joined together to compile an extensive list of resources on the history of racial violence in the U.S., from plantation slavery to the Civil War to Jim Crow to the Black Power Era to white supremacy abroad and beyond. Okay, white folks–we don’t really have an excuse for ignorance anymore. Here’s the info, laid out right in front of us, at our fingertips.